Lydford Bridge or The Maniac’s ;Leap The night was dark, the rain fell fast, And cold and piercing was the blast, As at his utmost speed, A trav’ller came, who seem’d to stray, And now benighted, on his way, Urg’d on his panting steed At morn he left a moorland …

‘I ofte have heard of Lidford Law, How in the Morn they hang & draw, And sit in judgement after…’ To say that the above lines have become synonymous with the village of Lydford would be no exaggeration, they are taken from a poem entitled, ‘Lydford Journey’ and were written …

ON THE LYDFORD WATERFALL It is a shadowy crevice of the wood, Wild though not stern, and lonesome, but not rude; So green and fresh with mingling boughs around, And waving fret-work o’er the untrodden ground; The tall dark crag, its roughness worn away, Shines with the dashing Cataracts frothy …

LYDFORD BRIDGE STREAM of the mountain! never did the ray Of the high summer pierce the gloom profound Whence rise the startling and eternal sounds Of thy mad, tortur’d waters! Beautiful Are thy sister streams – most beautiful- And rill and river lift their sweet tones all Rejoicing; but for …

‘At Postbridge, in a rude cottage of granite blocks put together without mortar, and in the midst of a marsh. lived an old blind man, Jonas Coaker… When Mr Sheppard and I saw him he was aged eighty-three, and came downstairs for a few hours only in the day. He …

Everyone gets a day when they just want to take things easy, be out in the Dartmoor landscape enjoying all it has to offer without the hassle of slogging up hill and down dale. Alternatively you may be new to exploring Dartmoor and initially a bit nervous about venturing out …

John Lloyd Warden Page, here is another author whose works tend to lay in the shadow of the more famous early Dartmoor topographical writers. I say ‘works’ because he published two Dartmoor books in the 1890s, the first was ‘An Exploration of Dartmoor’ and the second was ‘The Rivers of …

Most Dartmoor enthusiasts are conversant with the works of William Crossing, Eric Hemery, Samuel Row, and Hansford Worth, in other words the early topographical writers. Some may even add to that list Elisa Bray and John Lloyd Warden Page and the Reverend Hugh Breton. But there is one unsung writer …

People get introduced to Dartmoor in many ways, I along with many others first ventured onto its rocky heights in search of letterboxes. At first this tends to be the consuming passion but gradually that broadens out to encompass the many features and moods of the moorland landscape which then …

Author – Professor Ian Mercer Format – Paperback (400 pages) Publishers – Collins Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-0-00-718499-6 Price – £21.00 It has been many years since a ‘significant’ Dartmoor book has been published and that situation has been rectified by the publication of Ian Mercer’s book ‘Dartmoor’. I have several …